Hi lady! It's Stefania giving you a shout out. 
It is a slippery topic...
If the spouse doesn't want you to go and says so, maybe they are controlling and don't trust you? Maybe it's their guilty conscious?
If they don't mind if you do it, maybe they don't care? Maybe they are cheating on YOU and so figure you are due?
If it's an issue, maybe you have problems in your marriage?
If it's not an issue, maybe you have problems in your marriage?
I guess we all have to have ground rules for our relationships. When I was married I had a really, REALLY good friend who was male and lived kinda far so I would occasionally stay the night at his place, sans the spouse, (the friend was single) just so I didn't have to drive home at 2am. (he was teaching me computer stuff) That realtionship was 100% friendship and nothing ever happened or ever almost happened and my now ex-husband didn't have a problem with that.
Now, I have to add, that years later, I met a guy online and 2 years later I left my husband and the guy moved 5 states over and in with me. My marriage was a mess before I ever "met" the guy online but it sure made it easy...that one didn't last, either.
Anyway, sorry to take up so much room only to say "Hell, I sure don't have an answer!"
Actually, it WAS all about sex.
...
...
I'm so kidding. But it was just sitting there, like a giant meatball.
I've some thoughts of my own on this, but I just wrote the longest post of my blogging career, so I'm going to run on the treadmill instead of writing more.
I'll be sure to link back to this post when I put up my little screed.
Sorry I missed you, as well.
If my husband wanted to meet a female "friend" he "knew" from the internet, I would forbid it too. Shit, I'd be uncomfortable with him going out alone with a female friend he knew in real life. But you know that I don't believe in male/female "friendship," unless gayness is involved. I find it interesting that you were totally opposed to making a friendship with the guy on the airplane, but completely okay with meeting someone you've never even laid eyes on. No offense to Rich, whom I don't "know." I'm just on his wife's side here.
I've been thinking about this recently. My husband was teaching 2 states away this semester while I stayed here for law school. I've become good friends with a couple of men - one I met this semester (Y). Prior to my relationship with my husband, I always had close male friends and very few female friends. That has changed since we got together, but mostly it's been that I just don't have that many really close friends.
I was a little unnerved when I met Y and was very attracted to him - but I really didn't feel that attraction had anything to do with sex or physical attraction. He's just a really great person with whom I have a LOT in common - we're both type A personalities, very driven, hard-working, etc. He understands certain things about me that, while my husband can listen to and accept, just can't understand, simply because he's not going through what I am with law school. Sometimes I just want validation in how feel, from someone who's experiencing much of the same thing.
It's been some time since I've felt drawn to another man and I worried about what this meant for my relationship with my husband. But I realized that Y, while being a wonderful guy, could never really handle a woman like me, that I absolutely adore my husband, who accepts and loves all of me, good, bad, and ugly, that I don't have a finite amount of "love" to give, and thus, whatever feelings I may have for others, male and female, feelings alone should not detract from what I have with my husband.
So all of this is just to say that I think that it's all about the action you take with others, outside of your marriage. If you trust each other, are committed to each other, and take responsibility for the full ramifications of your actions, it shouldn't matter that you're friends with someone who happens to have biologically corresponding parts. This is not to say that sex has absolutely nothing to do with it, just that I think we're ruled far less by sex than we'd sometimes like to believe.
The thing that seems strange to me about your situation with Rich and the cancellation: why wouldn't Rich just invite his wife to dinner, as well? I could understand the wife having issues with the two of you going out alone, but it makes less sense to me why you two should not meet at all. Of course, I get that somehow you meeting at all would make the relationship more "real" somehow, so maybe that's all it boils down to.
Jeez, sorry this got so incredibly long. This is why I never comment on blogs.
Let me just say that I am really enjoying this story as it's developing.
It's like a blogging soap-opera.
And knowing Rich a bit personally, I think Maggie was only trying to protect Rich from himself ;D
/love teh interwebs
life is great and relatively short. Get the best out of it and sometimes do things not according to others wishes...
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